JAMES STRECKER: If you were asked for 50 words for an encyclopedia to summarize what you do, or have done, in the arts, what would you say?
ROBERT SILVERMAN: Eclectic Canadian pianist. (Last one standing of his generation.) Studied engineering and played hockey under contract with Montreal Canadiens before taking up music seriously in his early 20s. It took him until age 40 to make a NYC debut. Has always devoted a sizeable portion of his energies to teaching. Although not known a proponent of “New Music”, he premiered five Canadian piano concertos by name-brand composers (Hétu, Somers, Coulthard, Louie, M.C. Baker). Discography among the largest and most comprehensive of any Canadian pianist in history. In his later career, tends to focus on music of one composer at a time: Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart. As he approaches his 80th birthday, Chopin has caught his attention.
JS: What important beliefs do you express in or through your work?
RS: To bring the composer’s notes on a page to life as vividly as possible, to reveal his patterns of musical thought, while neither adding anything that is not there, nor subtracting anything that is there. I am well aware that such an endeavour is not the easiest path to fame and fortune. Moreover, this is certainly not the only way of playing; nor is it the only way of playing well. However, it is definitely the most difficult way to play, and for better or worse, it is the only way I feel that I’m doing an honest day’s work.
JS: Name two people, living or dead, whom you admire a great deal and tell us why for each one.
RS: Solomon (Cuttner) for his musical rigour, and Ivan Moravec for raising the craft of technique to an art-form almost independent of musical interpretation. I don’t remotely sound like either, nor would I want to even if I were in their league.
JS: How have you changed since you began to do creative work?
RS: I grew up a bit.
JS: What are your biggest challenges as a creative person?
RS: Technique. I was not and am not a “natural,” and it has always been difficult for me. But I am still making progress, even as my stamina is not what it once was.
JS: Please describe at least one major turning point in your life.
RS: 1. Making that “delayed” NYC debut – 2 different recitals at Tully Hall a week apart. It did wonders for my self-confidence as an artist. Hell, as a person too.
2. Learning and performing the 32 Beethoven sonatas after I retired from UBC. It set me on a different musical trajectory that shows no sign of slowing down after 20 years.
JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about what you do?
RS: See the answers I’ve provided thus far.
JS: How and why did you begin to do creative work in the first place?
RS: I don’t know. It was always a part of my life as far back as I remember.
JS: What haven’t you attempted as yet that you would like to do and please tell us why?
RS: Schubert on a period instrument. I have never been able to perform him to my satisfaction on a modern instrument, and I do love his music.
JS: What are your most meaningful achievements?
RS: Being an artist who never stops growing and evolving. As Toscanini said, “Every time I conduct a piece I’ve performed previously, all I can think about is how stupid I was then.)
JS: What advice would you give a young person who would like to do what you do?
RS: Don’t. Find your own way. Above all, don’t try to be the next Lang Lang or Yuja Wang. Those positions are already taken.
JS: Of what value are critics?
RS: Some are more perceptive than others to say the least. Here’s an article I wrote for Globe and Mail in 1987 following Kraglund’s — surely the most hateful of Canadian music critics, ever — retirement. (They refused it, saying that of course they agreed with me, but they didn’t see the point to it.)
ON MUSIC CRITICISM AND RETIREMENT PARTIES by Robert Silverman
Recently, Zena Cherry listed the guests attending a party honouring John
Kraglund on the occasion of his retirement as Senior Music Critic of this
newspaper. The resulting hiatus has provided me with a timely opportunity to
offer his successor a few general observations about music criticism from a
performer’s standpoint, while avoiding the obvious pitfalls involved in taking
any particular writer to task.
“Congratulations! You have landed one of Canada’s most prestigious
positions in the field of music journalism. You undoubtedly were selected for
the job because you write well, your training and experience have enabled you to
discuss a broad range of musical issues cogently, and above all, your love of
music is both passionate and profound. As a result, you now have the good
fortune to be paid to attend the finest concerts to be heard in your city.
Furthermore, given the level of Toronto’s cultural activity nowadays, the vast
majority of artists you hear will be of world, or at least national, class.
“You naturally will bring to your work your own aesthetic orientation, your
personal likes and dislikes, and this is as it should be. Your appointment
carries with it, however, the further assumption that you possess the capacity
to differentiate between subjective and objective elements of performance. Rest
assured that most serious artists today are aware of the various interpretive
possibilities inherent in a given work, they have heard all the recordings you
have heard, and they have thought long and hard about how the piece should be
played. What they have arrived at may not match your own conception, but their
approach may be equally valid, and must be judged on its own merits.
“A few more caveats may be in order. Remember that a critic who habitually
pans performers who are universally acclaimed by critics and musicians alike
probably is telling his readers much more about his own limitations than the
artist’s. Moreover, should a critic arrive at the point where he condemns more
concerts than he praises, there is a strong likelihood that it is music itself
he no longer enjoys, rather than any specific performance of it. True, he may
still enjoy writing on the subject. He may even get a special charge out of
slinging poisoned arrows at artists who he is well aware cannot, or will not be
bothered to respond; but as any perceptive reader knows, that sort of activity
has little to do with either music or criticism.
“Legend has it that the members of an orchestra, exasperated by the rough
treatment they persistently received at the hands of their local critic, xeroxed
all their diplomas and degrees, and sent him the package together with a note
stating “Here are our credentials. Show us yours!” The gesture was a little
juvenile, of course, since it is indeed possible to listen intelligently without
extensive formal training. On the other hand, not having undergone a rigourous
musical education over many years, and not spending countless hours practicing
virtually every day of one’s life does not necessarily render a critic more
qualified than a performer to know how a given work should be played.
“It must be extraordinarily difficult for a critic to leave a concert hall
night after night and knock off a review in the few minutes remaining before his
deadline. It is understandable that the muses cannot always be by the writer’s
side under such conditions: therefore, during those inevitable dry spells, it
might be advisable simply to mention who played what, much in the manner that
Zena Cherry listed the guests at your predecessor’s retirement party. In any
case, if in assessing the concerts you attend, you ensure that wit never
replaces wisdom, and sarcasm never masquerades as insight, you will elevate
music criticism in your current working environment to the noble profession it
potentially can be.”
(Robert Silverman is a Vancouver-based Canadian pianist of international
reputation. He appears frequently in Toronto and Hamilton and Niagara-on-the-Lake.
JS: What do you ask of your audience?
RS: Leave your cellophane candy wrappers and very young children at home. Don’t come with the specific goal of being entertained (although I hope you will be), but rather to embark with me upon an adventure of discovery and exploration.
JS: Please tell us about one or more projects that you have been working on, are preparing, or have recently completed. Why do they matter to you and why should they matter to us?
RS: I am still in my Chopin phase. I remain gobsmacked by this man’s genius, and the totally original way he composes. I learn something new every single time I practice or perform his music. I feel exhilarated and enriched. But I cannot tell others why this should matter to them, although I hope it would.
JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s society, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?
Hopeful: the level of instrumental performance these days is as good as, and in many instances, better than it ever was. Composers have rediscovered, after a half century, that writing music that some people may like is not a crime. Depressing: Orchestras, containing musicians who are at the above level, schedule concerts made up of Video Game music.
JS: Finally, what do you yourself find to be the most intriguing and/or surprising thing about you?
RS: When I was in Grade X, my teacher once told me that I was pretty smart but that I lacked intellectual curiosity. I must say, in retrospect, that he was right at the time, and for quite a while afterwards. But something began clicking in shortly after I turned 30, and thus far, it seems that my life trajectory has been akin to a Sibelius Symphony: It started with promising fragments, but has been crescendoing for a long while.